GUANGZHOU: China’s Xi Jinping has given French President Emmanuel Macron an unusually lavish welcome on a state visit, which some analysts see as a sign of Beijing’s growing offensive to woo key allies within the European Union to counter the United States.

The two leaders visited southern China together on Friday, where Macron drank Chinese tea with Xi in a former residence of his father in the city of Guangzhou, capital of the economic and manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong province.

Such forays by Xi with visiting leaders are rare. Diplomats say it underlines the importance Beijing attaches to this relationship with a key member of the EU as it looks for support against what Xi has called “all-round containment, encirclement and suppression” by the US

“All Chinese foreign policy offensives have the US-China relationship in the background...so to work with any country, especially middle or big powers, like France, is something they’ll try to do to counter the US” said Zhao Suisheng, a professor of China studies and foreign policy at the University of Denver.

Noah Barkin, an analyst with the Rhodium Group, said China’s chief objective was to prevent Europe from aligning more closely with the United States.

“In this sense, Macron is perhaps Beijing’s most important partner in Europe,” he said. Macron is often considered by diplomats to be an important driver of key policies within the EU.

Macron travelled to China with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, both pressuring China on Ukraine, but failing to wrest any public shifts in position from Xi. Still, Macron was given the full red carpet treatment.

Von der Leyen, who described China as “repressive” in a critical speech before her trip, cut a sometimes forlorn figure in Beijing, with a low-key greeting at the airport and not being invited to some state functions with Xi and Macron.

China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on Thursday: “It is clear to everyone that being a strategic vassal of Washington is a dead end. Making the China-France relationship a bridge for China-Europe cooperation is beneficial to both sides and to the world.”

‘Flattery’

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former French prime minister who has travelled extensively to China, said on the sidelines of a deal-signing ceremony in the Great Hall of the People that some of Xi’s charm was having an effect.

“Isn’t diplomacy, at one point or another, a bit of flattery?” he said. “There’s always a bit of that in human relations. Each side plays with that.”

In Washington, China’s diplomatic engagement with France is being viewed with a degree of scepticism.

Beyond Ukraine, China would relish a realignment that draws it closer to Europe economically as relations with the United States fray, but such a shift is unlikely at this point, said people familiar with the US government’s thinking.

Washington is taking a wait-and-see approach to the European engagements with Beijing over Ukraine, according to China wathcers. On Thursday, Macron urged Beijing to “talk sense to Russia” over the war in Ukraine while von der Leyen said Xi expressed willingness to speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Xi did not mention a possible conversation with Zelensky in China’s official reports of his comments after the meetings.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2023